What is social anxiety?

"Social anxiety is the fear of social situations that involve interaction with other people. You could say social anxiety is the fear and anxiety of being negatively judged and evaluated by other people. It is a pervasive disorder and causes anxiety and fear in most all areas of a person's life. It is chronic because it does not go away on its own." - From socialphobia.org

"Social anxiety is the fear of interaction with other people that brings on self-consciousness, feelings of being negatively judged and evaluated, and, as a result, leads to avoidance.

Social anxiety is the fear of being judged and evaluated negatively by other people, leading to feelings of inadequacy, inferiority, embarrassment, humiliation, and depression.

If a person usually becomes (irrationally) anxious in social situations, but seems better when they are alone, then "social anxiety" may be the problem." - From socialanxietyinstitute.org

Feeling suicidal?

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I think a huge reason my anxiety resonates is because when I talk to someone about something, all I can think about is the social aspect of actually talking to someone, not what ever we happen to be talking about. This leaves me looking like a babbling fool. Can anyone relate or give an oppinion to this?

Same here. I get stuck in my own head thinking of how not to be awkward, and it's exactly what I'm doing. I have confidence issues. I'm 23 and not getting any younger. Everyone I know has a great group of friends that they connect with on a level I can't even fathom. I have three friends that I see on a regular basis (when I'm not avoiding them), but each of them has their own group of friends that I barely know. The few times I hangout with those groups I'm quiet and reserved, and all I want to do is crawl into a hole to avoid having awkward conversations with them. They say I'm a good guy but they have nothing to base that on. They're just being nice.

Yeah, I had this bad. Often I felt like I was too stupid to converse, then I'd feel like I didn't have the experience other people had, then I'd feel like I was too smart and had to think three levels deep on every conversation and far into the future of how they'd react and how I'd react and what everything meant.

I found a really good therapist and at the end of the third session he said something like 'Well, I think that's it for today' and it felt like a huge trap shut in my head, all of a sudden I was racing a mile a minute trying to figure out if I should leave, if I should say something, what I could do to not appear as an idiot.

So I said something dumb, he over-reacted to it, I felt terrible, I walked 5' out his front door and it hit me like a lightning shock. During the session I am open and honest and say everything. To succeed in there is to share everything and I could only fail if I lied or hid things. But as soon as the session ended and we went into a 'social situation' I was so positive that I was going to fail that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And the realization solved 99% of that. I can say whatever I want to people, I accept that some will think I'm stupid or awkward and I should think 'screw those people'.

I suggest these issues are a couple levels deep in your head, that you can fix them with some help, and that it's near impossible to realize why they exist by yourself. It took me a couple therapists to find one that worked.

this is exactly the way i am with women. i don't know what to say. and then there are the awkward silences which are the worst. it's like you worry so much about something to say that you can't say anything.

Yes. This either makes me talk too much or too little and when I reflect on it I just feel horrible about the impression I made or how I made the other person feel. I'm currently in a situation where I can rarely meet people outside of family though.